


The Bottom Half of the Hourglass

by w3djyt



Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Prompt Fic, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 04:10:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12161259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/w3djyt/pseuds/w3djyt
Summary: A group of Ungaran terrorists go back in time to prevent their planet from getting drawn into the conflicts that ultimately brought so much hardship and destruction to their people.Unfortunately for Thaal, that means reliving a lot of his own past as he and Hal try to stop them.[ This was a prompt that got away from me. Whoops? Part of my Space Husbands prompt list on Tumblr: #24 Time travel to prevent apocalyptic future AU ]





	The Bottom Half of the Hourglass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AuroraExecution](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraExecution/gifts).



_“A true friend is someone with whom protocol is no longer necessary.”_

 

* * *

 

She’s just as beautiful, just as fiery, just as full of life and purpose and will as the last time he saw her alive. Her brother sprints by and a hole he’d thought long since filled unfurls in his chest. He can’t possibly be sure it’s actually Abin, as neither have said each other’s names since he started watching them, but he _knows_ \- he knows them both too well.

Arin spins gaily as she dodges her brother’s attempt to tag her, long black plaits swinging out as she does. Another child - this one unknown to him - joins the fray, just barely missing a desperate grab for dark locks, flowing cloth; anything that would let him catch the fae creature dancing away from her compatriots. It’s a sweet scene: a half dozen ungaran youths chasing each other about a field in the warm light of the morning sun.

Thaal knows that if he bothered to plumb the depths of his memory, he could more than likely name the park they stand in. He made plenty of trips to Ungara when courting his wife, and in spite of their love for nature in all its forms, they were a very technologically inclined civilization on the whole: the places such an achingly sweet scene could play out are relatively few considering.

And it _is_ sweet. Almost too much for him to bear watching, but then he’s always been a little masochistic and this little reprieve, he thinks, is well worth the churning sensation in his chest.

Then Arin turns, just for a moment, to stare curiously at him and he very nearly turns away.

He knows, of course, there’s no way she can see him. He’s much too good for that. Much too talented with a yellow ring to be tricked into thinking she sees anything but the trees at the edge of the clearing. There is no strangely dark ungaran lingering amidst the branches and leaves. No destroyed underbrush and harsh grooves in the planet’s crust or charred remnants of plants and bits of flesh and clothing that didn’t make it to the end of the battle. No beaten form at his feet to disrupt the sparkling innocence of the moment.

Still, she stares and it’s a look Thaal is painfully fond of; one that oft lingers in his recollections of her in later years when she weighed him with her eyes. She still has that look of lingering curiosity, now. It will be several decades before judgment and accusation and defiance and _pity_ enter that gaze. He didn’t think he’d ever see that tender, examining visage aimed in his direction again, and for just a moment he’s glad to have been dragged here.

Then one of the other children cries out in triumph as they strike her shoulder and the frozen scene lurches back to life.

He turns before a different hand can touch his own shoulder, cooly meeting another gaze he knows a bit too well.

“… Thaal-”

“I see you found yours,” Sinestro curtly observes rather than deal with whatever it was Jordan intended to say of the situation. He steps away before the other lantern can decide what to do with his hovering hand, using his ring to drag the nearly unrecognizable body at his feet into a deeply charred pile of equipment collected nearby. “It’s about time. I trust you didn’t leave anything behind that could pollute-”

“You _killed_ him?”

Hal’s voice is too soft for the sudden declaration, which is ultimately what makes Sinestro turn back to him, arms tightly crossed and one eyebrow raised imperiously.

Jordan raises his hands in what he’s come to understand as a general backing off gesture from humans, but ultimately drops them again with a sigh. He knows this gesture, too. Really, after so long at each others’ sides and throats, it is easy to communicate in complete silence. There’s a tension in his own form he know won’t go away no matter how many terrorists he releases that rage upon today. The one wrapped tightly in green bands of light twitches slightly, which makes Hal jerk his attention away again, eyes narrowed.

“If you intend for that one to make it to trial, we should leave,” Sinestro cannot help rather dryly commenting, drawing Hal’s attention back to him more by tone than by words. “Ungarans do that when their bodies attempt to heal from severe damage to their nervous systems.” A satisfied smirk tugs at his lips and the aching in his chest dims with the open struggle his companion suffers while attempting to process this new information.

Eventually, Hal settles for rubbing his hands briskly over his face and stepping up into the air. “Let’s just… Let’s just go.” He sends a second stream of green light out to gather Sinestro’s pile to him as well.

Sinestro probably could fight the urge to look over one last time at the pleasant dance of innocence playing out just beyond the protective barrier spun up in seconds upon realizing the terrorist’s targets. He doesn’t. There have been too many stops on their current misadventure between their present and this long forgotten time for him to ignore the moment of peace.

How could he forget the moment Arin was finally ripped from him? Being forced to relieve it - to _ensure it happened_ was… for anyone else it would have been too much. For Thaal, it was the first in a long list of moments that hardened him to the plight of their opponents. He could already summon the sensation of Arin’s dead weight to mind with ease; the precise pattern of wounds scattered over her form; the blankness of her gaze. He did not need the acrid scent of burnt flesh and plumes of dark smoke. He did not need the sudden, sharp spike of terror lancing through him to remind him of the casualties suffered that day and so many going forward until those responsible were brought to brutal justice.

But that had only been the start of their seemingly endless chase.

The first time he wed someone with the whole of his heart. Then earlier, when Arin had accepted his proposal. His first introduction to the corps at large, where he mistook Abin for a member of his people. The fateful meeting between the previous lantern of his sector and his younger, lonely, idealistic self. And now: a seemingly benign day chosen simply due to the influence two of the children will one day have and the low incidence of radiating negatives to Ungara alone.

All moments marked for adjustment by a splinter of people desperate for the return of Ungara’s glory days; to this very time when the universe at large did not impinge on the health and welfare of its people. Before it was caught in a war that would ultimately reset the planet’s very orbit. Before its people would suffer so greatly at the hands of those who, having never understood the immense roles Abin and Arin would eventually play in the survival of the universe at large, waged war against their own to bring back this idealistic past.

He turns away, redirecting his attention to the pock marked soil and destroyed flora that surrounds them. Supposedly, the device he’d taken from the broken corpse of the ungaran who somehow forced him into one of the worst days of his life could revert the area to how it had been before they showed up, but Sinestro finds himself leery of messing with the timeline quite so much. Best to simply apply the same cleanup strategies he normally would to avoid individual pockets of mismanaged timelines. So he partially rips up a tree and knocks it down over the majority of the damage, tearing away the remainder of the ash until the destruction looks naturally occurring.

Behind him, Hal activates the small device capable of tearing open the stream of time and dragging them through it. It’s not a pleasant journey, since neither of them have the extra set of equipment that is supposed to stabilize things, but their rings suffice to push them back to when they left. Their trip is made in silence - a strange occurrence for them, no matter the situation, and Sinestro finds himself casting occasional glances at a rather grim faced Hal Jordan throughout the length of it.

It’s not until Hal leaves to hand off the last living criminal to the science-cells that Sinestro actually allows himself to process any of it. And when he finally does, it’s with a guttural, incensed shriek as he hurls the remnants of their trip into the nearest star. The corpse, the equipment, and the last vestiges of a impossible future streak yellow through the void, towards a white corona, ultimately winking out in silence.

Thaal doesn’t know how long he floats there, unhearing but for his own breath and unseeing but for the images seared into his mind, but eventually he lands. The planet is quiet; flora and very little fauna. Perhaps there was once a civilization here, and perhaps he may once have been curious to find out, but all he wants now is the shade of the giant ferns and the beating heat of the sun. It’s not dry enough to be Korugar, but feeling any atmosphere at all just then is more comforting than he’ll ever admit.

He puts a hand on a vine like branch overhead and leans forward, feeling the strength of a living planet pulling him down and draws a slow breath, closing his eyes in a bid to settle frayed nerves.

“… I still have the Jumper,” Hal offers as he lands.

Sinestro isn’t surprised he’s returned. Some part of him stayed in the area because of it, after all. “Get rid of it,” he growls out, his hold on the branch tightening lest he fall to the temptation of making the trip again.

“We could-”

“You think I didn’t _want to_?!” The branch snaps in his grip and he drops it, spinning instead to face Hal’s ridiculous offer with all the anguish and fury he couldn’t allow before. “Do you think I never considered it?! I had to watch her die _again_ \- don’t you _dare_ think I could ever for a _second_ let that chance go without good reason!”

Two angry strides are all it takes to burst into Hal’s personal space and send the infuriating contraption to the ground. He tries not to notice how little of a fight the other man puts up.

“They had no _idea_ what they were messing with, but you know more than enough to understand why that device should be destroyed!” He snarls down at Hal, teeth bared and feral in his fury. And this, this overflowing pain, this unabated rage, is just as familiar as the rest of the day has been, but infinitely safer to indulge.

“ _Think_ for once in your life! She died before I ever had a chance to react. We take her even a moment before that and there’s no closure then or in the unification of Korugar. If there’s no unification, there is no confidence for you to betray. No trial. No banishment. No Weaponers.

“ _Who_ does that leave to wield Fear? _Who_ then saves you in the Blackest of Nights? _Who_ could possibly lead you through the Brightest Day? Who else to force the Guardians’ hands?” He shoves away with a bitter laugh, the outburst enough to settle his body’s need for action. Then he pauses, glancing askance to wear the Jumper lies undamaged on the dark purple soil.

“They were fools to think they could ever account for so many variables.”

“… Thaal…”

“Sometimes, I _do_ wonder how much you actually enjoy tormenting me, Jordan.” It’s a simple, quick movement that blasts the Jumper with yellow light, leaving only a tiny, smoking crater in the fertile soil beside them.

Hal’s expression is at once pained and understanding, but it’s a long moment before either of them says another word.

“… I kind of remember something like this,” he eventually sighs out, stepping forward again to stand next to Sinestro without encroaching on the bubble of tension that remains. “Bits and pieces, you know,” the soft addition with an absent wave towards his head. Thaal isn’t sure which possession Hal is referencing - Parallax doesn’t share much unless forced and he has no source other than Hal himself for his time as Spectre - but it’s rare for Hal to mention it either way. He inclines his head to prove he’s listening, but doesn’t turn back just yet.

“I’ve seen… I _know_ I could have changed a lot of it, but I… I also know there’s a reason I never did.” Hal shakes his head and turns to face Sinestro directly. “So I get it, I just… I guess I just… want to believe we could have overcome it all regardless, you know?” He offers a faint smile. “I think part of me always will.”

Thaal doesn’t mention all the moments today that, had they allowed them to be altered, would have prevented any version of them from ever happening. Arin’s life would not have guaranteed anything. He doesn’t even want to think about what would have happened had she been alive for the rest of Korugar. If she had been alive when he met _Hal_. How much of their relationship would have been completely different and how much would that have altered everything that came after?

It was just impossible to tell, which was ultimately the problem with every attempt those fools had made at changing time at all. No Arin meant no Soranik, for one thing, which was both completely unacceptable and utterly foolish of them to discount. They had no idea how many lives Soranik had touched on Korugar, let alone as a lantern of any color. Of the stability she had given his Corps in particular.

Or perhaps one of the children targeted would later give birth to Abin’s daughter, without whose death Abin may never have founded the Indigo Corps. There was even the chance that he might never have become a Green Lantern in any one of their intended timelines. What then of Ysmault? Of Atrocitous? Of himself without even one to call ‘friend’ until Jordan barreled into his life, if he even would have? That, and a million other possibilities spiral out in his mind, forcing his eyes shut and turning him away again. He doesn’t want to consider it. There are too many things he need to focus on _now_ to be held captive by the past.

Jordan’s hand finally makes it to his shoulder.

This time, he lets it stay.

Hal sidles closer, the alien heat of him sinking into Thaal’s cooler form with an ease that only comes from ring bearers familiar enough with each other to allow their life support functions to sync. The reminder twists Sinestro’s lips in wry acknowledgement of the inescapable intimacy they share no matter the long, oft bitter, years between them. He opens his eyes again to enjoy the warmth of Hal’s reassuring presence and tilts his head slightly to acknowledge the man’s previous statement.

“… There is certainly no power in this universe that can defeat the two of us together,” he finally answers, allowing all of the pride that wants to flow into his words to do so freely. It’s neither taunting nor seductive in tone, as he has been in previous encounters, because for once he finds no need to have to convince Hal Jordan of anything. The man had, after all, leapt into action the moment they figured out what the Jumpers had planned and remained resolute in their task of maintaining the - at times horrible - events that had defined more than just Thaal himself.

He turns slightly, facing Hal more directly, but before he can raise a hand or say another word, Jordan’s hand slips up from his shoulder to the back of his neck, pulling him down for a slow kiss. In his mind’s eye, Arin’s expression of disbelief at his confusion over the strange act is as clear now as it was all those long years ago. As is the memory of how she drew him to her again, murmuring soft instructions in Ungaran as she placed their lips together, at first lightly, then plying his lips apart with her own.

Sinestro welcomes Hal now as he once had Arin: parting his lips and dragging them together by a strong grip on Hal’s hips. It’s been decades now since this show of affection became a common act to him, and he knows by the small sound of approval and the way Hal leans into him that he has only improved in that time. Sometimes it feels like another life entirely; the one lived with Arin Sur separate from what he now lives sometimes with and sometimes without Hal Jordan. Today, the connection is so much stronger than he can ever remember it being, even much closer to the intersection of both in his life.

He digs his heels in to the dirt and the now, wrapping his arms fully around the man in his arms as Hal does the same, coaxing him with a talented sweep of his tongue and encouraging with another low noise in the back of his throat. Hal Jordan is difficult to resist at the best of times and these certainly aren’t it, so Thaal pushes back, allowing heat to fill him where emptiness and rage had once before, until Hal has to break away and pant for breath. It is an old game between them and leaves them both buzzing with affection and rising want.

Hal looks up at him with a crooked smile, already flush in his attraction and quickly steals another open mouthed kiss that ends with an affectionate nip at at Sin’s chasing lips. “Whatever happened in the past…” he murmurs between quiet pants for lost breath, “… I’m glad you’re here with me now.”

“Jordan-”

“And for every time you’ve stood beside me-”

Sinestro’s hold tightens involuntarily, and he quickly drags Hal into another, fiercer kiss, lest the man continue to say things that could test his resolve in other matters. That is a conversation better saved for a time when his emotions aren’t quite so raw and the need for reassurance of today’s decisions not as thick in his veins. For now, he’ll take the offered comfort of his greatest enemy… and his truest friend.


End file.
